Arrangement and a method of performing an animal-related action

ABSTRACT

An arrangement for performing an animal-related action on an animal includes a position determining component having a detector and a processing unit for determining the position of an animal part to be subjected to the animal-related action, and a performance component such as an animal handling unit or milking robot for performing the animal-related action. The position determining component is located at a first location including a station for housing an animal and the performance component is located at a second location including a station for housing an animal at a distance from the first location. A signal line is provided for transferring the coordinates of the position determined at the first location to the performance component at the second location in order to enable the performance of the action with regard to the animal part.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention refers to an arrangement for performing ananimal-related action on an animal, comprising means for determining theposition of an animal part to be subjected to said animal-relatedaction, and means for performing said animal-related action. Moreover,the invention refers to a method of performing an animal-related actionon an animal.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

In connection with animal-related actions, it is necessary to determinethe position of the animal part to be subjected to said action. E.g. inconnection with automatic milking, the position of the teats is to bedetermined before the attachment of the teatcups to the teats.

A number of different solutions has been proposed to solve this problem.Thereby, one may differ between forcing systems and search systems.Forcing systems are based on the idea of forcing, for example byphysically pushing, the animal to a determined position in the milkingstall and in which the teats then may be found by means of a searchequipment, for example including a video camera and image processing.

Search systems are based on the idea that the animal may stay in anyposition in a space, such as a milking stall, and it is the task of thesearch system to determine the position of the animal part. Thereby, arough determination of the position of said part may first be performed,and from this rough position, the position of said part may bedetermined by means of a more sophisticated search equipment.Thereafter, a milking robot, for instance, may be activated to attachthe teatcups to the teats in the positions determined by the saidsystem. A disadvantage with such systems is that the positiondetermining process is time-consuming, which means that a milking robotis occupied during this time period, and thus an efficient use of themilking robot is not possible to attain.

Furthermore, in connection with automatic milking it is known todetermine the position of an animal in a stall by means of a devicecomprising spring biased arms abutting the animal and following itsmovements. Such a device functions for the determination of a roughposition of the animal, from which position the teats, for instance,then may be found by a more sophisticated search equipment. However,such devices are mechanically very complex with many moving elements,and therefore they are subjected to wear and the reliability thereof isnot satisfying. Moreover, cows being fairly strong easily may damagesuch arms; a mere bending thereof results in an inaccurate measurementof the animal position.

Many search systems rely for the function on individual-related datastored in the search equipment and comprising facts about the shape andthe position of animal parts, such as the udder and the teats. However,since the shape of the udder is changing during the lactation period,such a method is not very exact and therefore such data need to beregularly updated in order to meet these changes. Moreover, storing ofsuch individual-related data is a complex, time-consuming operation,especially when the herd comprises many animals.

It is also known to determine the position of the teats of an animal inconnection with a milking occasion and to utilize this determinedposition at the next milking occasion. Such a method has thedisadvantage that, due to the fact that the shape of the udder and theteats may change over the time and from one milking occasion to thenext, the accuracy of the determination is not fully satisfactory.

NL-A-8 602 505 discloses an equipment for milking an animal at a milkingstation having means for the attachment of teatcups and means fordetecting the position of the teats. Before the animal is led to themilking station it is firstly cleaned in a cleaning station and secondlymilking samples are taken in a station disposed at a distance from themilking station. The milking sample station comprises means fordetecting the position of the teats and a robot arm for the successiveattachment of a teatcup to each of the teats. Moreover, the milkingsample stations comprise means for investigating the quality of the milkand the health of the animal by measuring different milk and animalparameters. Furthermore, this document mentions the possibility ofrecording all measurement data for the purpose of comparisons with othermeasuring results.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to overcome the disadvantagesmentioned above and provide an arrangement and a method by which theposition of an animal part may be determined in a more efficient mannerand with a high accuracy.

This object is obtained by the arrangement initially defined, which ischaracterized in that said position determining means is located at afirst location having means for housing an animal and that saidperforming means is located at a second location having means forhousing an animal at a distance from said first location and that meansis provided for transferring the coordinates of said position determinedat said first location to said performing means at said second locationin order to enable the performance of said action with regard to saidpart. By such an arrangement the determination of an animal part may beperformed before the animal-related action is to take place, which meansthat for example a milking robot may be utilized in an efficient manner.Moreover, the animal-related action may be performed on any animalwithout fetching animal-related data regarding the position of the teatsfrom a data base. Accordingly, no individual-related data needs to bestored in advance, and furthermore it is not required to identify anindividual animal for the purpose of determining the position of theteats.

According to an embodiment of the invention, said position determiningmeans is provided to determine the position of said animal part inrelation to an animal reference part of said animal. Such a relativeposition may easily be stored and transferred by electronic computerequipment.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, said first locationis connected to said second location by an animal passage. By such apassage the animal may immediately after the determination of saidposition be transferred to the performing means, thereby minimizing thedestruction of the determined position coordinates. Said animal passagemay be defined by enclosure means.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, said first locationcomprises means provided to prevent the animal from moving away fromsaid first location during at least a time period of the determining ofsaid position. Thereby, the accuracy of the determination may beimproved.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, said positiondetermining means comprises at least one detector and processing meansprovided to determine said position in response to said detector.Thereby, said detector may comprise one or more of the followingcomponents; a video camera, a laser emitting device, an IR-sensor, andan ultrasonic measuring device.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, said performingmeans comprises an automatic handling device and animal-related means.Thereby, said animal part may comprise a teat and said animal-relatedmeans at least one teatcup to be applied to said teat of the animal bymeans of said automatic handling device.

The object defined above is also obtained by the method initiallydefined and comprising the following steps of: enabling a movement ofthe animal to a first location, determining the position of an animalpart to be subjected to said animal-related action, enabling a movementof the animal from said first location to said second location, andperforming said animal-related action with regard to said part at saiddetermined position.

Preferred embodiments of the method are defined in the accompanyingclaims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will now be explained more closely by thedescription of different embodiments thereof and with reference to thedrawings.

FIG. 1 shows a view from above of an arrangement according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a front view of a position determining station of thearrangement of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DIFFERENT EMBODIMENTS

With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, there is disclosed an arrangementcomprising a position determining station 1 at a first location and amilking station 2 at a second location. The arrangement may be providedin a barn (not disclosed) housing many cows walking about freely. Theposition determining station 1 and the milking station 2 are connectedto each other by an animal passage 3. The position determining station 1is defined by enclosure means comprising lateral grids 4, an entrancegate 5 and an exit gate 6. The milking station 2 is defined by enclosuremeans comprising lateral grids 7, an entrance gate 8 and an exit gate 9.Also the animal passage 3 is defined by enclosure means comprisinglateral grids 10, whereby the exit gate 6 of the position determiningstation 1 forms the entrance gate of the animal passage 3 and theentrance gate 8 of the milking station 2 forms the exit gate of theanimal passage 3. As may be seen from FIG. 1, one of the lateral grids10 may be provided with an exit gate 11. In connection to the milkingstation 2, there is provided a milking machine, merely represented by areceptacle container 12, four milk conduits 13 and four schematicallydisclosed teatcups 14 to be attached to a respective teat of the cowbeing present in the milking station 2. For said attachment, there isprovided an automatic handling device 15 comprising a control unit 16and a robot arm 17 having gripping means. The robot arm 17 may becontrolled to grip successively a teatcup 14 and attach it to a teat ofthe cow.

The position determining station 1 comprises position determining meanshaving a set of detectors 18 and a processing unit 19. In the followingexample, the position determining means comprises position detectors 18in a form of video cameras. However, it should be noted that theseposition detectors 18 according to further embodiments of the presentinvention also may comprise laser emitting devices or ultrasonicmeasuring devices. According to a still further embodiment theseposition detectors 18 may comprise an infrared sensor, a so calledIR-sensor. FIG. 2 discloses a set of video cameras 18 arranged in acurved configuration, such that the udder and the teats of the cow maybe observed from several different directions, in particular frombeneath and sidewards. Consequently, it is possible to obtain athree-dimensional image of the teats and the udder. The images from eachvideo camera 18 is processed in the processing unit 19 for thedetermination of the coordinates of each teat of the cow. In particularit is the position of the teat tip which is determined. The position ofthe teats is determined in relation to an animal reference part of thecow. Such a reference part should be fixed and preferably not displacedover the time. For example, such reference part may be formed by thehip-joint, the shoulder, the abdomen or the udder. Such a reference partmay also be formed by a natural colour spot in the fleece of the hide ora colour spot x applied to the cow. One of the video cameras, e.g. thevideo camera 18 a disclosed in FIG. 2, may be directed to such areference part x. The processing unit 19 is connected to the controlunit 16 by a signal line 20 which is adapted to transfer the coordinatesof the teats to the control unit 16. These coordinates of one cow areutilized by the control unit 16 to control the automatic handling device15 to attach the teatcups 14 to the teats of said one cow when itarrives from the position determining station 1 to the milking station 2via the animal passage 3.

By means of the gates 5, 6, the cow will not be able to move away fromthe position determining station 1. Thus, the determination of theposition of the teats may be performed on an udder which is kept still.It should, however, be noted that the gates 5 and 6 may be omitted,whereby the determination of the position of the teats should be adaptedto be performed with regard to a moving udder. This may be accomplishedby locking a video camera, e.g. the video camera 18 a, to the referencepart x to follow the movements of the cow by focusing on said referencepart. The video cameras 18 directed to the udder and the teats are thenadapted to perform a corresponding movement. Moreover, a displaceablemanger 21 may be provided to be introduced in the position determiningstation 1 to attract the cow and making her keep still. After thedetermination has been completed, the manger 21 is withdrawn. The manger21 may be a complement to the gates 5, 6 or may replace them.

The animal passage 3 comprises an exit gate 11 by means of which the cowmay be led away from the milking station if for some reason milkingshould not be performed.

By means of the arrangement according to the present invention, theentrance of the cow to the position determining station 1 is enabled byopening the gate 5 and e.g. by introducing the manger 21 into theposition determining station 1. Thereafter, the position coordinates ofthe teats, and especially of the teat tips, are determined andtransferred to the control unit 19. In the meantime the entrance of thecow to the milking stall 2 is enabled by opening the gates 6 and 8. Thearrival of the cow to the milking station 2 is detected and thus theteatcups 14 may be attached to the teats of the cow immediately when shearrives at the milking station 2. Consequently, no time needs to bespent in the milking station 2 for the determination of the position ofthe teats. Since it is considered that the determination of the positionof the teats in the position determining station 1 may be performedfaster than the milking in the milking station 2, the station 1 may beprovided with further equipment, for example for cleaning or massagingthe teats of the cow, or for examination of the health condition of thecow.

Although the arrangement according to the present invention has beenexplained in connection with automatic milking, it should be noted thatthis arrangement may be utilized for the performance of anyanimal-related actions, such as medical treatment, insemination, teatand body cleaning, etc, and with regard to different animal parts.Thereby, the automatic handling device 15 may be adapted to handledifferent medical instruments, cleaning tools, etc.

Although it is considered that the determination of the position of theteats according to the present invention is sufficient for immediateattachment of the teatcups 14 when the cow arrives at the milkingstation 2, it should be noted that the inventive arrangement maycomprise a further position determining device provided in the milkingstall 2 for a final determination of the position of the teats.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed butmay be varied and modified within the scope of the following claims.

Although the present invention has been explained in connection with thecows, it should be understood that the inventive idea also may beapplied to other animals, for example sheep, goats, horses, buffaloesetc.

What is claimed is:
 1. An arrangement for performing an animal-relatedaction on an animal, comprising: means for determining the position ofan animal part to be subjected to said animal-related action; and meansfor performing the animal-related action, wherein said positiondetermining means is located at a first location having means forhousing an animal and said performing means is located at a secondlocation having means for housing an animal at a distance from saidfirst location, and further including means for transferring coordinatescorresponding to said position determined at said first location to saidperforming means at said second location in order to enable theperformance of said action with regard to the animal part.
 2. Anarrangement according to claim 1, wherein said position determiningmeans is provided to determine the position of the animal part inrelation to an animal reference part of the animal.
 3. An arrangementaccording to claim 1, including an animal passage connecting said firstlocation to said second location.
 4. An arrangement according to claim3, wherein said animal passage is defined by an enclosure.
 5. Anarrangement according to claim 1, wherein said first location comprisesmeans provided to prevent the animal from moving away from said firstlocation during at least a time period of the determining of saidposition.
 6. An arrangement according to claim 1, wherein said positiondetermining means comprises at least one detector and processing meansprovided to determine said position in response to said detector.
 7. Anarrangement according to claim 6, wherein said detector comprises avideo camera.
 8. An arrangement according to claim 6, wherein saiddetector comprises a laser emitting device.
 9. An arrangement accordingto claim 8, wherein said detector comprises an IR-sensor.
 10. Anarrangement according to claim 9, wherein said detector comprises anultrasonic measuring device.
 11. An arrangement according to claim 1,wherein said first location is defined by an enclosure.
 12. Anarrangement according to claim 1, wherein said second location isdefined by an enclosure.
 13. An arrangement according to claim 1,wherein said performing means comprises an automatic handling device andanimal-related means.
 14. An arrangement according to claim 13, whereinthe animal part comprises a teat and at least one teatcup to be appliedto the teat of the animal by means of said automatic handling device.15. A method of performing an animal-related action on an animal,comprising the steps of: enabling a movement of the animal to a firstlocation; determining the position of an animal part to be subjected tosaid animal-related action; enabling a movement of the animal from saidfirst location to a second location; transferring coordinatescorresponding to the determined position of the animal part to means atsaid second location for performing the animal-related action; andperforming said animal-related action with regard to said part at saiddetermined position while said animal is at said second location.
 16. Amethod according to claim 15, wherein said movement from said first tosaid second location is enabled by an animal passage.
 17. A methodaccording to claim 15, wherein said position is determined in relationto an animal reference part of said animal.
 18. An method according toclaim 15, wherein the animal is prevented from moving away from saidfirst location during at least a time period of the determining of saidposition.
 19. A method according to claim 15, wherein said partcomprises at least one teat and that said animal-related actioncomprises automatic attachment of a teatcup to said teat.
 20. Anarrangement for performing an animal-related action on an animal,comprising: a sensor for determining the position of an animal part tobe subjected to said animal-related action; and means for performing theanimal-related action, wherein said sensor is located at a firstlocation having an enclosure for housing an animal and said performingmeans is located at a second location having a second enclosure forhousing an animal at a distance from said first location, and furtherincluding means for transferring coordinates corresponding to saidposition determined at said first location to said performing means atsaid second location in order to enable the performance of said actionwith regard to the animal part.